Tag: Connecticut

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now almost certainly the major-party candidates for president.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both exceeded expectations in the April 26 Acela primaries. Trump couldn’t have had a better night, beating his polls in almost every state and picking up an extra 12 delegates by triggering winner-take-all rules. He also did extremely well, as Huffington Post points out, in getting his voters to pick his slate of delegates. Assuming that slate is loyal, we now think Donald Trump will reach 1,237 delegates on the first ballot.

After April 26, we project Donald Trump to have 1,206 bound delegates at the convention. With the 29-31 delegates from his slate in Pennsylvania, it now looks like Donald Trump will win on the first ballot.

Indiana is the the #NeverTrump crowd’s last hope. If Trump wins that state, even by a few points, Cruz and Kasich would need miracle numbers in California to block Trump from reaching 1,237 delegates. Polls show him ahead, but our model suggests he might still be vulnerable there. However, our model failed to account for Trump beating his polling numbers – sometimes significantly – in the last six contests…something he had not done thus far.

On the Democratic side (and, insert GIF of us tooting our own horn here), our projections were pretty right on (nailing Pennsylvania) with the exception of Maryland, where Clinton had her most unexpected showing. The polls missed her margin by nearly 18 points in the spread, netting her 20 “extra” delegates.

We now think Sanders needs 64.5% of the delegates, on average, in the remaining states. That number will likely increase to nearly 70% by June 6. He is likely to get that in Oregon, and maybe even Washington, D.C., but our model has him losing the June 7 primary in California 245-230. The math is grim for Sanders, but with a big war chest, there’s no reason for him to withdraw.

Where he and his supporters can hold on to hope, though, is that Clinton is extremely unlikely to hit the 2,383 convention majority with bound delegates alone. We project she’ll enter the convention with 2,176 elected delegates to Sanders’ 1,875, meaning he won’t ever be mathematically eliminated until the 712 superdelegates vote on the first ballot. That said, Clinton’s 470-25 lead in that unofficial count is unlikely to dwindle, absent a major political shock.

There was news this week: a possible Cruz-Kasich coordination, the possibility Sanders would shift after today’s primaries, etc. None affected the delegate math, hence the quiet week here. After tonight’s results, we’ll put in state-by-state benchmarks into the model to give a better preview of where we expect the races to be at each state. Tonight looks fairly straightforward on the Republican side, with the possibility for some surprises on the Democratic side.

Republican race

Trump should win each of the states up for grabs, approaching 50 percent of the vote in each of them. Wildcards will be how individual high-income CDs in Connecticut vote, but overall we expect 90 of the 117 delegates up for grab tonight.

Trump looks for an April 26 sweep, keeping him close to on track for 1,237.

This performance keeps Trump close to hitting the magic 1,237 mark. Pennsylvania has 54 unbound delegates up for grabs, and a strong showing there can help Trump make the case that they should go his way, keeping him just on track to win on the first ballot. Much depends on Indiana, and, of course, California.

Democratic Race

After the strong showing in New York, the narrative has been that Clinton would effectively finish Sanders off during the Acela primaries. Don’t count on it. Our model has her losing Rhode Island, and Delaware and Connecticut are too close to call.

While her more-comfortable leads in the more-important Maryland and Pennsylvania races should give her around a 30-delegate pickup on the night (Clinton should win around 208 to Sanders’ 177), the media narrative has been that she will sweep. Failure to do so may sustain the current competitive narrative.

Sanders may win three states on April 26, but Clinton will likely win the delegate count.

At the end of the night, we expect Clinton to have 1,660 pledged delegates to Sanders’ 1,376. There are still 1,016 delegates at stake following tonight, but Sanders would need nearly 64% of them to tie Clinton before the convention. That’s an increase from the 60% he needs before these primaries, and we don’t expect him to hit that mark in any of the five contests.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had big nights in New York, both getting around 60% of the vote. They both needed the big wins, and they got them. Clinton won 139 of 247 delegates, and Trump will get around 90 of the 95 on the GOP side.

They didn’t, however, deviate too much from our projections (although, and we admit it, we went on the conservative side on both, the mid-point part of our model would have had us closer, at Clinton 105 and Trump 85. Oops.)

Republican Race

With Trump’s big win, we now estimate he will get 1,160 of the 1,237 delegates he needs to lock up the nomination on the first ballot.

New York handed Trump his biggest step up since March 15, but he still looks to finish short.

There are a lot of caveats to this analysis. Most importantly, there’s vanishing little polling in the upcoming states. While he should get 40% or so of the votes in Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Rhode Island on April 26, the big outstanding tests are Indiana and California. Our model currently has Trump losing New Jersey. This is almost certainly wrong, and would hand him 51 delegates (or 1,211 of the 1,237 he needs), but is based on now 2-month-old polling.

Another caveat: one important outcome for the evening is that Ted Cruz held steady with 546 pledged delegates, by our count. With just 618 left on the board, he joins Kasich in becoming mathematically eliminated. However, Kasich’s reasonably strong performance in New York shows that’s not necessarily a killer, but our model has Cruz cleaning up in states like Montana (and winning Indiana), which could be more difficult if he’s having to wage a Kasich-like battle for relevancy.

Democratic Race

With California at the end (well, DC) of the calendar and 714 super delegates able to change allegiances through the convention, Sanders will never face mathematical elimination. New York, as expected, made his case much more difficult.

Clinton’s win in New York all but assures her of the nomination, but the race stays tight through the convention, where she’ll need superdelegates.

Like Trump, Clinton now enters a slate of states that should be favorable. Our model has her picking up between 20-30 delegates over Sanders in next week’s primaries, which look a lot like New York in terms of polling (10-20 in Maryland and 10 in Pennsylvania). It’s not enough to clinch the nomination with pledged delegates alone.

The Democratic race should stay close, but Sanders should remain around 300 delegates behind Clinton.

For Sanders, we show him getting around 48% of the remaining delegates. He needs 59% of the 1,400 remaining delegates to work this to a tie.

His campaign is sending mixed messages on his way forward. Sanders’ campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, told MSNBC that Sanders would “absolutely” try to flip superdelegates if he remained behind in the popular vote and delegate count. They would need to win 500+ of the 714 superdelegates to do so.

At the same time, campaign strategist Tad Devine left open an exit, telling the AP that the campaign planned to “sit back and assess” the campaign’s chances after next week’s contests.